INNUMERACY PAULOS PDF

A review, and links to other information about and reviews of Innumeracy by John Allen Paulos. He is trying to reach out to the otherwise educated, literate individual who perceives himself or herself functioning well in society despite innumeracy. Paulos. Paulos (mathematics, Temple U.) examines many aspects of popular culture, from stock scams and newspaper psychics to diet and medical claims to.

Overall a very readable book that could have a big impact if only the right people would read it. Open Preview See a Problem?

Review of a book on mathematical illiteracy | Bankers Anonymous

We acknowledge and remind and warn you that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure. He has received awards in: Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. I bet a lot of his stated intended audience–innumerates–aren’t making it past the first chapter, let alone getting all the way to the end.

While many innkmeracy would be pxulos to admit they are illiterate, there is very little shame in saying “I’m a people person, not a numbers person.

Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences by John Allen Paulos

At one point he says he finds it hard to write at length, preferring brevity and concision. It is a very interesting number.

Design by Sweb Development. I do appreciate the author’s clear love of math, and there are several good examples. Retrieved 30 August I take his point, as a largely innumerate person, but the book reads as very dated it is almost 30 years old now and his arrogant indignation at laulos who isn’t a mathematician is off-putting.

For that matter, how mathematically literate is your doctor? This is called regression to the mean. If that makes me “innumerate,” so be it. Paulos speaks of “statistically meaningless”, forgetting that this terminology is already enough to throw off most of his innumerate readers. So if I do poorly today I’m likely to do better tomorrow; and if I do well today I’m likely to do worse tomorrow. Innumerates do not ask this question, because they are unaware of its significance; even if they were, they could not understand the numbers.

I had never thought of it quite like that. De hecho, me gusta ver este problema desde otra perspectiva: The author, it is eventually revealed, was a mathematical prodigy as a child, and still takes immense pleasure in doing things like deftly computing the volume of all the pqulos in the world in terms of how deep it would fill Central Park, or how fast human hair grows in miles per hour.

Many of these sufferers, however, admit to no shame and have little recognition of the impact which innumeracy has had on their everyday life. The complete review ‘s Review:. ;aulos instance, I think we can all agree that math education has been biased towards the rote memorization of formulas and terms at the expense of fluency and “playful” exploration of numerical and geometrical concepts. Innumeracy made the New York Times best seller the year it came out in innkmeracy I once had a conversation with a doctor who, within approximately twenty minutes, stated that a certain procedure he was contemplating a had a one-chance-in-a-million risk associated with it; b was 99 percent safe; and c usually went quite well.

He also does a great job pointing out the negative impact of innumeracy on society in general – h I already believe that numbers are beautiful and just make sense but it’s always nice to read a book that agrees with you.

At the end of 6 such random predictions, this promoter will have been right 6 times in a row to approximately astonished people.

As often observed, however, the 45, people killed annually on American roads are approximately equal in number to all American dead in the Vietnam War. Why don”t news magazines and newspapers make appropriate use of scientific notation in their stories?

Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences

Yes, you may even get turned on. Plus a lot of the examples aren’t from current events despite what the back cover says. And if you don”t have some feeling for probabilities, automobile accidents might seem a relatively minor problem of local travel, whereas being killed by terrorists might seem to be a major risk when going overseas. Paulos also discusses the issue of mandatory drug testing.

Book Review: Innumeracy, by John Allen Paulos

I think that in a book it would work to make the whole thing readable from the pau,os, but to gradually introduce more difficult ideas through the book. Paulos is aware of some of the problems “I have a difficult time writing at extended length about anything” and he is probably right when he writes: I wanted to like this book but the opening pages nearly made me quit reading. On page 94, Paulos bemoans the innu,eracy that people attribute combination to causation: Since a year has days if you count February 29there would have to be people gathered together in order for us to be absolutely certain that at least two people in the group have the same birthday.

March 5,VII, p. For any given individual, the positive test would simply be a coincidence, not an indication of drug use. Not Bad Reviews blakerosser To ask other readers questions about Innumeracyplease sign up. It’s one thing to continue educating myself with book such as these, and make headway towards being fooled less and less by ridiculous statistics and pseudoscience in general.

Paulos expounds on mathematical concepts as they relate to everyday life – the true nature of particular risks, gambling chances, and understanding extremely large and small numbers. Additionally, I will never pick up any book pahlos Paulos again, nor will I read anything he recommends. For example, one of the sections focuses on normal fluctuations, like how one shooter in a basketball game may ha There are some good ideas and points in here.

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. The north wall of a garage near my house contains almost exactly ten thousand narrow bricks. Jul 14, Manolo rated it liked it Shelves: